Air Neglect

What's wrong with trained pilots having guns?

In the new
Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, the young wizarding
students are frustrated by a "Defense Against the Dark Arts" teacher
who resolutely refuses to teach the students how to protect
themselves. The teacher, Deloris Umbridge, is a government bureaucrat,
and she considers it better that innocents be murdered by the Death
Eaters than for people outside the government to be able to fight
back. Unfortunately, our real-world Transportation Security
Administration might as well be run by Deloris Umbridge. By sabotaging
the armed-pilots program, the Bush TSA is resolutely continuing to
undermine the will of the American people and the express
determination of the United States Congress.

Last month, the TSA fired Willie Ellison, who had been the head of the TSA firearms
training academy. Ellison was strongly praised by the first class of
44 pilots which recently graduated from the program. According USA
Today(June 6), Ellison was fired for "unacceptable performance
and conduct."

What was
Ellison's "unacceptable" conduct? He held a dinner for the first class
of graduates, gave them baseball caps with the program logo, and asked
for course evaluations.

Does firing a
teacher for conduct like this really sound like the TSA is interested
in high-quality teaching? Or is the TSA bureaucracy, like Deloris
Umbridge, so opposed to defensive training that trivial bureaucratic
pretexts are used to get rid of effective teachers?

The TSA's
hostility to armed pilots is not confined to the firing of Ellison,
for which House Aviation Subcommittee Chair John Mica (R., Fla.) has
promised an investigation.

No sooner had
the first class of armed pilots graduated from the Federal Law
Enforcement Training Center in Glynco, Georgia, than the TSA announced
the program would be relocated to Artesia, New Mexico. Experienced
instructors in Georgia have the option of quitting their jobs, or
moving their families to a remote town which is 186 miles by car from
Lubbock, Texas, the nearest major city.

Oregon Rep.
Peter DeFazio, who represents a very left-wing district including
Eugene, home of the University of Oregon, rarely can be found on the
same side of an issue as John Mica. DeFazio is a fervent gun control
advocate, who introduced nine gun control bills within three days
after a school shooting in his district. Yet DeFazio, who is the
ranking Democrat on the Aviation Subcommittee, denounced the closing
of the Georgia training program as "just another attempt to disrupt
the program at the behest of the airlines who have always opposed
arming pilots" (USA Today, June 6).

Last fall,
Congress rejected administration proposals for a small "pilot" program
for airline defense. Instead, Congress enacted broad legislation for
widespread arming of pilots. But the TSA's new Federal Flight Deck
Officers (FFDO) program appears designed to discourage pilots from
being able to protect their plane and passengers.

The TSA demands
exhaustive background investigations for any pilots who wants to be
armed: comprehensive disclosure of every address, interviews with past
and present neighbors, friends, coworkers, and more. Naturally, such
processing is extremely expensive. The high cost of such
investigations enables TSA to severely limit the number armed pilots,
and to add long delays in processing.

The next
obstacle is the screening. The TSA subjects each victim (Oh, sorry!
FFDO candidate) to intrusive, probing and far-reaching psychological
evaluations. Now if we trust an individual with the good judgment to
fly a $100 million aircraft with the lives of 400 individuals in his
hands, why is it suddenly necessary to give him the psychological
fifth degree because he would have a handgun?

Every pilot
pursues his career at the pleasure of the federal government. And if a
bureaucracy doesn't like a pilot's answers or behavior in one of these
intrusive evaluations, the bureaucrats might decide that not only is
the pilot not fit to carry a firearm, but he might also not be allowed
to hold an Air Transport Pilot's license as well. The risk that a
government psychologist might destroy a pilot's ability to earn a
living because he thinks the pilot has unresolved conflict with her
cousin will discourage many conscientious and able pilots from
applying.

Although pilots
would technically be designated as federal law enforcement officers,
they would not be authorized carry their guns in ordinary holsters as
every other law enforcement officer does, but only in special locked
boxes to be kept in the cockpit during flight. Accordingly, the pilots
would not be faced with the myriad of situations in which a federal
law enforcement officer with emotional problems might an inappropriate
decision about defensive gun use-such as when an undercover officer is
challenged to a fight in a seedy bar.

Thus, the
psychological screening used on FBI agents is unnecessary for airline
pilots, and is silly in light of the fact that every pilot already
controls a weapon thousands of times more powerful than a handgun.

The next
obstacle is the training. Even though there are over 66,000 members of
the Airline Pilots Association, the TSA plans to train the FFDO's 48
pilots at a time at a budgeted cost of $12,000 a person.

The TSA
complains that it doesn't have enough money for FFDO, and announced
that once the first class of 48 pilots were trained, there would not
be enough money to continue the program. Congress responded with an
appropriations bill ordering TSA to spend eight million dollars of
existing TSA funds on armed pilot training. Having trained one class
in April, the TSA will start another class in July. Plainly this is a
pace for the proposed small program which Congress rejected, rather
than the large program which Congress enacted.

TSA is
willfully blind to an option which could produce thousands of
well-trained pilots within a few weeks: private firearms academies.
These academies offer excellent, intensive training in defensive
handgun for a cost of about two thousand dollars or less. Plenty of
these classes are six days long, like the federal class.

Some private
academies, such as
Front
Sight Training Academy in Nevada, have patriotically offered to
train pilots for free. For academies without pilot scholarships,
pilots could be given the option of paying for the course themselves,
rather than waiting for TSA to get around to providing a free federal
course, at some indefinite date in the future.

Gary Marbut,
head of the Montana State Shooting Association, has followed TSA
official procedures to submit an offer to train 1,200 pilots for a
cost of $800 each. The detailed application was strongly supported by
Montana senator Conrad Burns. Marbut's application was submitted last
November, on the day the President signed the Homeland Security Act.
Over half a year later, nobody at the TSA will even explain what
happened to Marbut's proposal, Marbut says.

It should be
remembered that an armed pilot resisting a hijacking faces a much
simpler scenario than a typical defensive shooting by an FBI agent, a
police officer, or a citizen with a concealed handgun permit. These
latter three must be prepared for surprise attacks, and for the
possibility of using firearms in any of the hundreds of places where a
person might be during the course of a day. Law-enforcement officers
must confront the additional difficulty of being forced to intervene
in situations (such as domestic disturbance) in which it may not be
immediately clear who is the aggressor and who is the victim.

In contrast,
the armed pilots would only use firearms in a place they know
extremely well: their own cockpit. Because cockpit doors are now
secure and barricaded, and because of enhanced communication abilities
between the cabin stewardesses (or stewards) and the cockpit, pilots
would likely have warning before a hijacker breached the cockpit door.
The attacker would be a very few feet away-as opposed to attackers who
might be many yards away in ordinary ground-based defensive gun use.
Unlike in ground-based defensive gun use, the pilot would not have to
worry about whether use of deadly force should be delayed in the hopes
that lesser force or a warning might suffice; a hijacking scenario and
cockpit invasion would by definition require use of deadly force.

In short, there
is no good justification for TSA inventing a requirement for a $12,000
federal training course, and using this pretext as a choke point to
prevent arming pilots.

While
obstructing the Congressionally mandate for armed pilots, the TSA is
announcing that it is thinking about allowing pilots and cabin
stewards to carry stun guns. The administration floated this proposal
in 2002, as attempt to defeat the armed pilots program, and Congress
voted instead to give pilots real firearms, not stun guns. A stun gun
is certainly better than nothing, but it's not nearly as effective as
a firearm. For one thing, it can be defeated by thick clothing.

The core
problem is the bureaucrats really do not want pilots to be armed. "I
don't think we want to equip our pilots with firearms," said Homeland
Security Secretary Tom Ridge. Asked why, Ridge replied "Where would it
end?" In other words, if we arm pilots, then we have to let other
potential terror victims arms themselves, and that would be crazy!
Actually, since 1989 Ridge's home state of Pennsylvania has allowed
any law-abiding adult who wants to carry a concealed handgun for
protection obtain a permit to do so. There is a background check
requirement, but, unlike in many other states, no training
requirement.

The law in
Pennsylvania is working just fine. So fine, in fact, that when Ridge
was governor, he signed legislation eliminating a loophole in the
Pennsylvania carry law which had prevented Philadelphia residents from
obtaining permits. So if concealed handguns work on the mean streets
of Philadelphia, with no training requirement, what's wrong with
trained pilots having guns?

Unfortunately,
the TSA appears to be full of old Secret Service bureaucrats who think
like Ridge, and who can't stand of the idea of gun carrying by people
who don't work for the government.

In dealings
with Saudi Arabia, the Bush administration is continuing the failed
policies of the past, by placing the short-term interests of American
corporations ahead of the long-term need to remove a regime which
continues to allow that nation's wealth to finance international
terror. The Bush administration is likewise placing the desires of big
corporations, the airline companies, ahead of the safety of airline
passengers and crews.

Apparently the
airline executives would rather risk another 9/11 than take the (tiny)
chance that an armed pilot might use his gun illegally, and the
airline might be sued. While the Bush administration adopted this
corporate view, the American people and the Congress have taken just
the opposite position. And it is the position of the American people
which Congress enacted as the law of the land.

Meanwhile,
Senators Barbara Boxer (D., Calif.) and Jim Bunning (R., Ky.) are
working to close another dangerous loophole in our nation's gun laws.
Last fall's Arming Pilots Against Terrorism and Cabin Defense Act did
not include provisions for arming cargo pilots. Under existing law,
the executive branch could allow these pilots to be armed tomorrow,
but of course has failed to do so. The Boxer-Bunning S. 516 would
close the loophole, and include cargo pilots in the Federal Flight
Deck Officers program. In the House, H.R. 1049 by Rep. Joe Wilson (R.,
S.C.) would do the same thing.

As Sen. Boxer
points out, a hijacked cargo plane can damage a ground target, such as
a nuclear power plant, just as severely as a commercial airliner.
Current security of cargo planes is very poor. Cockpit doors are not
reinforced, and it is easy for unauthorized persons to sneak onto the
tarmac and get on a plane. In late 2002, a mentally deranged woman
walked into the cockpit of a cargo plane in Fargo, and asked to be
flown to California. Sen. Boxer
warns, "If someone with diminished capacity can do this, think
what terrorists might do."

On June 12, the
full U.S. Senate
voted to add the Bunning-Boxer amendment to the reauthorization
bill for the Federal Aviation Administration. The cargo companies,
such as FedEx, do not want cargo pilots to be allowed to carry
firearms, or even allowed to carry stun guns.

Clearly it will
take much more work by Congress and the public to overcome the
Bush/bureaucrat/big-business alliance against sensible, bipartisan
policies for homeland security. In the meantime, American planes,
except for the tiny fraction carrying federal air marshals, remain
undefended against al Qaeda's Death Eaters.

Dave Kopel
is a contributing editor of NRO. Captain David Petteys is a retired
United Airlines pilot, Marine helicopter pilot in the Vietnam War, and
author of Marine Helo.

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